Nearly meeting your Maker while playing Santa

Immediately after Thanksgiving each year - even before the leftover turkey grows cold - I begin donning my Santa suit and visiting the homes of many a needy family in my beloved Bristol, carrying my bonafide Santa sack filled (and re-filled) with toys, games, books, food, and clothes. (I must gleefully note that this Santa would make nary such a trip without the immense generosity of my many friends, who donate so readily to this cause each Season.)

And what to do if a child believes not that I’m really ol’ St. Nick?

Oh, I carry a few lumps of coal in my pocket for such heretics. Indeed, I place a lump visibly into their stocking if I can find it. If not, I plop a big ol’ lump right smack into their little hand. Not kiddin’.

How quickly such an apostate child will feign belief again! Ho! Ho! Ho!

During one Santa visit I handed an especially grouchy and spunky wee urchin a lump of coal. She promptly proceeded to hurl it toward me with all her might. The lump of coal hit me squarely between my eyes. I immediately thought of the Philistine giant, Goliath, getting hit in this exact same spot with a similarly well-aimed projectile hurled by the shepherd boy, David.

Unlike the famed giant of the Old Testament, however, I did not meet my Maker.

Yes, I teetered and wobbled around a bit, but I did not fall.

Yes, it nearly knocked me out. I had a bump there for several days.

Yes, the lass was harshly reprimanded by her parents.

Yes, I hugged her anyway and told her I forgave her (after all, that’s what Santa would do, right?). The little girl sobbed heavily and hugged me tightly with immense and apparently sincere penance.

Eventually I staggered on my way, a bit dizzy and dazed - and quite happy I did not go the way of Goliath.

St. Nick must be lively and quick. So I tarry nowhere long. I’m in and out quicker than you can name all my reindeer. Just enough to deliver gifts, hug the children, look the parents in the eye and say, “You know, Santa says if you teach your child to do well in school and work hard, it might be the greatest gift you could ever give them.”

On another Santa visit I came perhaps closer than ever to meeting my Maker.

I was going to visit the child of a student I’d taught long ago. The family lived in a mobile home park. Not in Bristol, but kinda smack dab in the middle of nowhere.

The child’s mother had told me, “You can’t miss our trailer. It’s the only one gots a big ol’ blow up Santy out front.”

When I asked for a trailer number, she said, “It’ll be plum past too dark to see, but just look for the big ol’ blow up Santy, Mr. T.”

So, I did.

I came to a trailer with a “big ol’ blow up Santy” and got out.

(Now when a family knows I’m coming, I enter a home fast - nimble and quick - “Ho-Ho-Ho-ing” all the way.)

So I did precisely that.

I burst in a red flurry through the door … to find myself staring at what looked like it could be the set of Duck Dynasty.

Beards galore.

Also. Guns galore.

A card game was takin’ place. (So maybe the guns were handy in case someone cheated durin’ the card game?)

A lot of was drinkin’ takin’ place. (Which no doubt made reachin’ for a gun if someone cheated a bit more likely.)

But apparently not a lot of deep thinkin’ was takin’ place.

For at the first sight of this Santy, the man with the longest beard snatched up one of the nearby guns and practically squealed like a pig, “I always wanted to bag me a Santy! Say, we just put us up a big ol’ blow up Santy out front right before you came bargin’ in. Must have drawn you in to us for the kill.”

Then the man with the longest beard winked.

I was praying that slow, drunk, lazy wink was not the last sight I’d see in this world before I met my Maker.

I somehow gathered myself enough to open my mouth and immediately apologize for entering the wrong trailer. At which pronouncement the long-bearded card-playin’, moonshine drinkin’ good ol’ boys all immediately laughed together.

While they were rollicking and hee-hawing away, Santa slunk back out the door to find another trailer - the other one in the trailer park with a big ol’ blow up Santy.